Seth said that he's working on making the characters Grow, so a lot of you saying that they haven't changed isn't accurate.
Meg: She went from being an equal to being hated, and now she's becoming strong-willed in her own right and lashing back at people from time to time. I think she is making her way into being respected again.
Chris: Chris is shown to be less of an idiot then what he was portrayed before.
Stewie: Yeah, they stopped the "is he gay?" and outed him pretty much..But, he's also showing less hate towards the world. Now, most of the time, he comes across as being the "chill" one of the house.
Peter and Lois: Peter is about the same...I wish they could work on him. Lois seems less "restrained", like it doesn't seem like she is hiding any frustration anymore.
But, yeah, they kind of dropped a lot of the stuff they had been building up. And I do agree that the show has become more of a clip show, that is VERY annoying. There's good and bad. I don't think it's comparable to the Simpsons, which is desperately in need of dying.
I was in Best Buy with a friend, and we were looking at the TVs when the Simpsons came on. The intro seriously, no joke, lasted for like 3 minutes. They were chasing the couch into space and around the world and stuff.....You can tell they have just run out of ideas.